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All This in a World Without Dragons
In the car on the way to school, the father told his son that one day, when he was older, he'd have to kill a dragon. The father's voice shook as he said this. The word, dragon, caught in his throat. Outside, trees flowed past, and other cars. It was morning, autumn. The sun was permanently behind clouds. Leaves had started changing, falling, and the old men were out collecting them on the lawns. As always, the mother wasn't there. Trees flowed past and still the mother wasn't there. The father took a sharp turn and twigs scraped across the window of the car. Still, the mother wasn't there. Like all mothers of sons, this mother was far away, in a different city, trying to forget a child she'd never really known, trying to forget the man who used to be her husband. They were father and son in an age without dragons, she told herself, and they led a stringent and frightful life. A father knew the moment he was going to die. He knew what was going to kill him. Mothers were powerless to stop it.
Decades had passed, maybe centuries, since the death of the last dragon. Now that they no longer existed, people avoided speaking of them in public. At night, after the father put his son to bed, he sat down with the old stories, rehearsing them as the child slept. In the car, the son recognized a glint of fear beneath the word, dragon. He did not know, he could not know, but he pictured a tall, vague thing, about as tall as a very tall man. The thing snarled at him. It slithered and breathed fire. In the passenger's seat, the boy squirmed and wanted to cry. The seatbelt had been rubbing against his neck the whole way. To feel better, he focused on the father's hands, bigger than he thought his could ever be. This boy is only five, the father thought. He is still young. And he still has the eyes of a child. Dark and calm, not yet fierce. At that moment, the father was also considering his hands. He was considering reaching one of them toward the boy and patting him on the head. He was considering circling his fingers around the boy's neck, squeezing.
In the car, the father said no more about dragons. He drove to the school wishing he hadn't mentioned them. His son wouldn't turn twenty for another fifteen years, and by then he'd be almost as big as the father, his hands almost as strong. The father would have taught him to wait until dark. Like all sons, this one would creep into the bedroom of the father. He'd take the father to the woods, tie him up, perform the simple task of exposing his throat and cutting it. Leaving the body for the forest's smaller creatures, the son would remove only the hands and feet. He'd start a fire and cook those parts until they were black and charred. Then, kneeling softly in the soft mud, he'd lift the father's palms to his mouth and lick the rough skin for hours until his tongue bled.
It was the father who taught the son how to do these things. It was the father who showed him exactly how to dismantle and destroy. Like all fathers with sons, this father moved slowly, drove slowly. He checked his mirrors often. If a light turned red, he'd tap the breaks and glide to a stop. Yet this father, like all men older than twenty, had once learned how to kill. Years ago, he too had entered the bedroom of his father, knowing he was supposed to wake him before tying him up and slaying him. But he'd killed his father in the dark so he wouldn't have to see. And he'd done it while his father still slept, so he wouldn't have to feel. Alone in the woods, he'd removed his father's hands before tossing them away. And he passed the rest of the night like that, shivering, wondering exactly what he had done.
Fifteen years later, the father still could not forget that killing his father had felt a little too close to killing himself. He still recalled the cold mud. The sad corpse swinging in the breeze. The sickness lingering in his stomach. It was a powerful feeling, a feeling that things weren't quite right, that he had been misled. He questioned whether he had done what he was supposed to do. Taking deep breaths to try and control it, the father had vowed never to have a son of his own. Never would he allow his life to end in that way. Never would he expose a child to the prospect of killing. Now, in the car on the way to school, the son was there, and he sat in the passenger's seat. Only his hand was moving. Fussing with the seatbelt. Behind them, cars began to honk. The light was green and traffic was trying to flow forward. They were stopping it.
At the school, the father parked and stepped out of the car. He opened the door for his son, took the boy's hand, and together they walked around the building to the yard. A crowd of students waited for the bell, the younger ones standing against the wall, the older ones playing a game that involved tackling each other on the concrete. Above, in the sky, dust swirled beneath sulfur-colored clouds. The father crouched next to the son on the blacktop. He hugged the boy, kissed him on the forehead, straightened his hat. For a moment they stayed that way, the father's hands swallowing up the child's shoulders. Then the father kissed the boy again and nudged him toward the other children. The boy took a reluctant step. Across the yard, a teacher watched from the doorway. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was giving them a sad smile. The father nodded at her and stood. Soon he was far away, turning the corner toward the parking lot.
As the mother traveled from city to city, she shared homes with other mothers, sometimes for a week, a month, a year before moving on. She did not want to know the moment her son turned twenty, so she was trying to forget the date of his birth. In the evenings, the mother played board games in the parlor and watched TV. Mornings, she woke early, ate a quiet breakfast, and rode the subway downtown. Somewhere she had heard that millions of people once lived in this city. Now there weren't so many. She imagined what it might feel like to be amidst a crowd. To go up and down teeming streets. To constantly have to shove a path from one place to another. At a corner, she passed a group of men gathered outside a bathhouse. They were older, and they were usually there. When they weren't bathing, they were sitting on the steps, talking and smoking. It was their job to keep the city clean, and they did it well. But the mother knew she could not thank them. She could not look them in the eye or encourage them with a smile. Like all men over twenty, they had killed their fathers. But they had not been killed themselves. For whatever reason, they hadn't had a son of their own. In this, they'd failed.
Like every adult, the father and mother knew only pieces of this. They knew only pieces of everything. But in the decades or centuries since the age of the last dragon, people had continued to pass stories, fathers to sons, mothers to daughters. These stories had continued to evolve, and although they contradicted each other and sometimes seemed to tell of many worlds at once, people continued to follow them, they continued to believe. In the age of the dragons, they said, life had been violent, dark, superstitious. In the age of the dragons, there had been science, advancement, discovery, harmony. Always, there had been war, always peace. And in the time after the last dragon's death, the world had crumbled. Cities loomed hollow, like coral. After the last dragon's death, there was light. People thrived. The world was new and old. It was ours and it was not.
At his desk, the father filled out reports. Later, he made calls and filled out more reports on the results of those calls. As always, he could hear men working in the cubicles around him. A constant din of shuffling papers and voices talking on the phone. At ten they had a break to refill their coffee, and they gathered to discuss things like sports, or weather, or women who'd put pictures of themselves on billboards lining the highway. Most of these men were about the same age. They joked together easily, and laughed. But they were not friends. Never did they mention anything about family. Never did they indicate whether they were raising sons.
During lunch, the father sat by himself in an almost deserted plaza. The air was growing colder and he knew it wouldn't be long before his hands started to numb. All morning, he'd reminded himself that his son was only five. In the car, the father had mentioned the word, dragon, and the boy had kept silent. Of course the father had expected this, but it angered him. For a moment, he'd felt the hate and fear of killing return. He'd had the urge to do it again. Now, hours later, the father unwrapped his dry meal with stiff fingers. Shame washed over him. When he was young, he'd insisted that the stories were up for interpretation, that they weren't meant to be followed exactly. But he'd never quite convinced himself, and he'd never quite been able to shake the feeling that he was a coward, that he was no slayer of dragons. Thinking back on the shadow that was his own father, he recalled returning home from the woods. It had been strange to realize that the house was now his. Its walls and rooms were his. In the garage, he'd stripped off his mud-covered clothes, then crossed the kitchen and ascended the stairs. Turning on the shower and waiting for the water to warm, he'd noticed a bottle of sleeping pills on the counter. He'd understood then that he would not have been able to wake his father even if he'd tried. He realized that this discovery should have absolved him. But it didn't. Instead, it made him wonder of the decision to kill his father in his sleep came from somewhere else. If it was something innate, something passed down.
In the plaza, a young couple strolled past, the boy with his arm around the girl's shoulders. The father knew they glanced at him in pity, and he felt the same for them. When they were gone, he stood and stretched. He slid his hands into his pockets and walked slowly back to the office. It scared him to know that in fifteen years the boy would enter his bedroom, tie him up, and take him to the woods. But it also frightened him to suspect that, like him and his father, the boy might choose to deviate. All afternoon, the father thought about this, and could only sort the papers on his desk and scatter them again. He could only stare at his phone for whole minutes before remembering how to dial.
Still, the mother wasn't there. Each morning, she slid into an apron, and for hours she set plates in front of customers, took plates away. Every afternoon, the old men came in, always too early, always expecting to order lunch before the restaurant finished serving breakfast. It was obvious that the men had been working. Most wore crushed baseball caps with rings of sweat creeping up the edges. They were very quiet and they slumped in their seats. They refused to raise their eyes even when giving their orders. Serving them, the mother felt a strange kind of tenderness. She could not help but remember ten years ago, when she'd just fallen in love with the man who used to be her husband. Then they'd turned thirty, and they'd followed the stories like everyone else. For the first few months, the mother hoped that a miscarriage might give them another year. She silently wished for a girl.
At the school, it was already growing dark. The air smelled nice and new and deeply of metal and the father could see his breath. Nearby, other parents were scattered about the yard. They stood with hands in their pockets, heads down. The father knew he could not be the first to consider killing his son. Many of parents had probably thought of it. But if a father did not have a son or did not try, he became an outcast. If he hurt his boy or allowed the boy to be hurt, he had little to do but close himself off, block the windows and doors, board up the house. Crouching in the darkest corner of the darkest room, the father would wait. Usually these men died of hunger and fatigue. But there were also stories of coroners entering a house to discover a torn and ragged body, a torso etched deep by wounds from gigantic teeth and claws.
The father scanned the children's faces, searching for a smaller version of his own. When the son noticed him, he ran to the father, grabbing him by a finger and tugging him toward the parking lot. The father pretended to resist and struggle. The child laughed. In the car, they turned into a line of taillights heading away from the school. The son was no longer afraid of dragons, he said. He'd painted one in art, and it hadn't done anything but make him laugh. Again, the father felt dread pass through him, but he looked at the boy and couldn't help but smile. The son was waving one little hand in the air. The other was hanging onto the seatbelt near his chin. Outside, streetlights tremored and poured down. At once, everything was blurry and clear.
The son was only five. Still young. The father considered this as he turned onto the road leading to the woods. To distract the boy, he asked him if he'd ever seen a dragon, if he even knew what one looked like. The boy answered by shaking his head. He did not. The father promised to draw him a picture when they got home. He told the boy a story, the very first one. Sitting back, the son closed his eyes and listened. It would be a while before they cleared the city. Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe longer. The father turned up the heat and the son soon slept. If only there were dragons, the father thought. None of this would even be happening.
Cities away, the mother did not sense that her son was in danger. She worked as she always did and she returned to the house in the evening. At the front door, she found a woman waiting for her. The mother did not know this woman, but she followed her to a room nobody ever used. Inside, it was just a simple bedroom with brown walls and soft, thick carpet. Light came from a single lamp in the corner, making the space seem very small. Left alone, the mother walked toward the bed. Her muscles were stiff from waiting tables. The skin between her thighs had chafed. Someone had laid out a dress for her, and she stepped from her uniform before sliding the loose cloth over her shoulders. She sat on the bed, trying not to ruffle the blankets.
Soon, the door opened and the house's great-grandmother entered. The younger mother offered to help her maneuver her walker over the thick carpet, but the old woman refused. She lowered herself into a chair opposite the lamp and sat for a moment in shadow. Then, shifting so the mother could see her face, she began to speak. Something horrible has happened, she said. And immediately, the mother thought of the man who used to be her husband. She thought of her son. We live in a world without dragons, the old woman continued. It is a place where nothing is left to be discovered. We use the stories to fill in that emptiness. Here, men can't remain heroes for long before turning into dragons themselves. Women must have children. They must do the hardest thing and leave them. But there are times when men refuse to become heroes. When they refuse to become dragons. This has always been unthinkable. This is when a woman has to go back.
Decades had passed, maybe centuries, since the age of dragons. Sometime since then, or maybe during, information had passed smoothly from one place to another. It was stored on pages, as data, exchanged at light speed. The first story, the one the father told his son in the car, started with the last dragon. It had been in a zoo, safe behind glass and it had been happy there, declawed and defenseless, content to eat the skinned and dying goat zookeepers shoved through a door in the wall every afternoon. When someone snuck into the dragon's cage and slit its throat, the world became simpler, easier to follow. Some of that old time carried over. Skyscrapers were built, knocked down, rebuilt. Land was formed and flooded and formed. But books began to molder in the basements of the dilapidated libraries. Computers stalled out, gaping, disconnected. The most important thing, it seemed, was that fathers had always taught their children to use their hands and feet. To use their knives and spears and guns. Desperately, they caused short bursts of other lasts. Soon, the giant bears lay dead. Then the ferocious tigers. Then the vicious and mindless sharks. When nothing remained that was larger than the father, the stories began to tell of those who turned the weapons against themselves. Honorably, the fathers followed this. Honorably, they became the prey.
It took the father a long time to close up his house. Now, his eyes could not adjust, and he was having trouble staying awake. Time passed, but he wasn't sure how much. The darkness seemed to tumble before him. Crouching there, in the corner, his body and legs burned, pain needled his stomach. At some point, he shifted to lean against the wall. And that helped. Finally, when he decided he was going to sit and let himself die, he heard footsteps in the garage. Slowly, they crossed the kitchen and ascended the stairs. Slowly, the bedroom door opened. Whatever it was, the thing made almost no sound in the dark. It did not even seem to breathe. The father tried to stand against it, but his legs cramped. He stumbled and sat. Are you the dragon? he asked. But he could not be sure if the thing heard him. His words seemed to die in the dark. Kill me if you must, the father continued. But I did the right thing. The boy was young. Only five. I saved him. One day, he might save us.
In one hand the mother held an electric lantern, in the other a long, sharp knife. She was there. For days she'd traveled back to the old city, staring out the window of the train, imagining what would happen when she arrived. Sometimes she pictured killing the man who used to be her husband. Sometimes she helped him escape. In this room now, the dark took her eyes away. It was easy just to stand. To be quiet. To wait until something happened. At first, the mother felt a deep rage, but that had turned to a wave of sympathy just as strong. She knew she was supposed to let the man believe she was a dragon, that in a way she was supposed to become one. But she reached out toward his face and touched his cheek and it was as she remembered. Slight and thin. Covered with a light beard. Underneath, she could feel his mouth, still moving. The father stiffened, as if he'd recognized her touch. There are things I have to say, he told her. And he described his night in the woods. How he neglected to wake his father. The sleeping pills. The promise never to have a child of his own. There are times when I didn't believe, he told her. But I believe now. Now I believe.
For a moment, the mother felt her love for him return. Please stop, she said, but the words came out in a whisper. The father babbled on. The mother listened, remembering where the windows were, how easy it would be to tear the coverings away. Just close your eyes, the mother said. You are not allowed to open them again. This time her words carried the necessary force. The father quieted. The mother removed her hand from his face. She gripped the knife. She lit the light.
Since the day the boy turned four, the father, like all fathers of sons, had used his evenings to relearn the old stories. Each night he put his son to bed and sat down to rewrite them from memory. Then he repeated them under his breath. One morning, in the car, on the way to school, the father felt he was ready. Outside the sun was permanently behind clouds. The leaves were changing, falling. The old men were out, raking them on the lawns.
Fifteen years later, the son still remembered the word, dragon, catching in his father's throat. It was the day, he knew, that his father had taken him to the edge of the woods, bundled him in two coats and kissed him on the forehead. For a moment they'd stayed like that, the father's hands swallowing up the child's shoulders. The father had tried to explain something to him. Slaying the dragon slayer never worked to save the dragon, he'd said. But those who seek a dragon are the only ones who might find it. If I don't tell the stories to you, the father told his son, you cannot follow them. Find a dragon, he insisted, bring one back alive. If you do, everything might change. If you do, it might save us all.
The boy had been young, only five. He'd been confused and scared. The woods loomed dark and silent. Not a single noise came from them. When the father nudged him toward the trees, he'd taken a reluctant step. As the son began to wander, he often thought of this last moment. Sometimes he believed he would come across his father in the woods. But mostly, he heard the voices of other men. And he had learned to watch from a distance as one hung another up, slit his throat, built a fire. In the mornings, the men that were still alive abandoned the ones that were dead. Leaving them for the forest's smaller creatures. Creeping up to the bodies, the son saw that they had no hands or feet. The dead thing looked like a father, but it was rough and cold to the touch. It might be, the son thought, a dragon in disguise.
On the day the son turned twenty, he found an opening in the trees. The meadow grass grew higher than the boy's waist. It had not been trampled, and above birds circled and hung in a clear, blue sky. Far in the distance, a massive, crumbling castle sparkled on the horizon. By the time the son entered its first corridor, night was settling in. Slowly, he stumbled from room to room, arms outstretched. Feeling his way through the dark. When he finally came to the end, he found a very old, very strange thing. It was exactly as he had pictured it all those years ago. About as tall as a very tall man. When it coughed, a bit of smoke dribbled from its mouth. The boy stared. Fifteen years later, he still trusted his father. But he did not know exactly what he remembered, what he'd forgotten. Long ago he'd begun to suspect he'd been misled. For years he'd been wondering why he wasn't like the others he'd seen. Why his story didn't end like theirs. And he'd come up with reasons, although he wasn't always quite convinced. Looking at his hands, the son felt a swell of pride. They were finally as big as the father's, finally as strong. For a moment, he considered reaching one of those hands toward the dragon. Touching it on the shoulder, leading it away. For a moment, he considered coiling his fingers around the dragon's neck, squeezing.
Lucas Southworth's stories have recently appeared in Mid-American Review, PANK, Wigleaf, The Collagist, and others. He is a current editor at Slash Pine Press, an editor at 300 Reviews (300reviews.com), and an instructor of English at the University of Alabama.


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The same technology used by astronomers to obtain clear views of distant stars is now being used by optometrists to perform incredibly detailed examinations of the living eye.
An update on new developments in ocular imaging techniques -- and how they may affect clinical vision care in the not-too-distant future -- is presented in an article titled "Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope-based Microperimetry" published in a special May issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.
Cutting-edge techniques now allow researchers to visualize the fine structure of the eye in a way that was "not conceivable 20 years ago," according to a guest editorial by Scott Read OD PhD FAAO (Candidate) and colleagues. "As these advanced imaging methods continue to develop, the potential for imaging ocular structures down to the cellular level in everyday clinical practice has become a reality -- and the potential to improve patient care is truly stunning," Dr Read and coauthors add.
New Techniques Provide Cellular-Level Images of the Living Eye The special issue presents 30 reports on the latest, most advanced techniques for imaging and measurement of various eye structures: the retina and optic nerve, lens and ciliary body, and the anterior eye. Written by leading researchers and clinicians, the contributions provide a fascinating look at these remarkable new technologies, with a glimpse of their likely extensions into clinical practice.
As just one example, William S. Tuten, OD, MS, and colleagues of the University of California, Berkeley, report on the development and use of an "adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope." Adaptive optics refers to the use of advanced techniques to correct for optical aberrations through any transparent media. Originally developed for use in telescopes to correct for the distorting effects of the atmosphere, adaptive optics is now being applied to evaluating the structure and function of the human eye.
Dr. Tuten and colleagues have applied adaptive optics to perimetry -- also known as visual field testing -- on the microscopic scale. Perimetry is an important part of evaluation for patients with vision disorders including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and diabetic retinopathy. Perimetry measures vision in all parts of the visual field, including the peripheral vision.
Promising Applications to Improve Clinical Vision Care The new paper describes (and illustrates) the use of adaptive optics-guided microperimtery to assess visual fields at an unprecedented level of detail. The technique can not only show limitations in visual fields, but can trace the defect to individual retinal photoreceptor cells. High-speed tracking is used to correct for normal eye movement, or "jitter," that is practically undetectable using conventional imaging techniques.
In addition, by using microscopic blood vessels as anatomical landmarks, the adaptive optics technique permits repeated studies to be repeated over time at a high level of precision. This offers unique opportunities for studying how treatments work on the cellular level, as well as following the effects of treatment over time in individual patients.
"This technique opens new horizons for clinician-scientists, and later clinicians, to better understand, and plot out, the relationships between vision and the retinal photoreceptors at a microscopic level," comments Anthony Adams, OD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Optometry and Vision Science. "It enables a new understanding of vision loss in patients with retinal disorders where there are discrete photoreceptor losses -- for example, macular degeneration."
Adaptive optics-guided microperimetery and other advanced imaging technologies described in the special issue have the potential to revolutionize the management of eye diseases, Dr. Read and colleagues believe. They conclude, "With ongoing improvements in imaging speed and resolution, and with the application of innovative methods to improve the clinical usefulness of ocular imaging techniques, the future of ocular imaging is bright!"
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subset: commoncrawl


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FATTORI (Sindachi, Gonfalonieri, Fattori del Ghetto, ):
The executive body of the Roman community, consisting of three persons elected for one, later for one-half, year, by the representatives of the community. They called the meetings of the community; their consent was necessary in cases of excommunication; they controlled the treasurer, who could make no payments except on their order. They were aided by a committee chosen by the community; they reported to the community every three months, and rendered an account at the end of their term of office. The community was represented by them at the Vatican, which held them personally responsible. Thus they were imprisoned when a Jew escaped punishment by flight. At least one fattore, in addition to the rabbi, was required to take part in the carnival homage to a senator, and to be present during the Sabbath sermons for converts. Any attempt to shun this burdensome and costly office was punished by a fine and subsequently refusal to fill it was strictly forbidden. The office probably existed as early as the twelfth century, although its functions can not be traced definitely beyond the fifteenth century.
- Vogelstein and Rieger. Gesch. der Juden in Rom, i. 263, 343; ii. 128, 311, 319-328. 393;
- Berliner, Gesch. der Juden in Rom. ii. 32, 72;
- Zunz, Z. G. pp. 509, 513;
- Rodocanachi, Le Saint Siege et les Juifs, pp. 78 et seq.;
- Samuel Kalai, , p 40a, No. 54;
- compare Guüdemann, Gesch. des Erziehungswesens und der Kultur der Juden in Italien, p. 308.


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Contact prediction showed immense potential to assist protein structure prediction. Despite recent successes, contact prediction remains a hard problem. The hardness is mainly due to the size of the solution space. Inevitably, information is needed to pinpoint correct contact pairs in that space. Consequently, the most promising approach towards improved contact prediction is to identify, leverage, and combine information sources that are indicative of contacts. We extend beyond current methods by combining three orthogonal sources of information: evolutionary, sequence-based and physicochemistry.
The meta approach generally improves the results. Combining multiple sources of information can help to mitigate drawbacks exhibited by individual methods, similar to ensembling in Machine Learning. Though by expanding the amount of information, we inevitably increase the dimensionality of the feature space, which introduces new challenges. First, the high dimensionality of the feature space increases learning complexity, data size, training time and promotes overfitting.
Second, most of the commonly used feature sets have been devised to be used on their own not in context of meta approaches. Different information sources may still overlap, thus not contributing to learning. Therefore, it makes sense to re-evaluate them.
We conducted a feature importance analysis which revealed that the amino acid composition, a widely used feature, can be removed without harming the performance. Our assumption is that it has been rendered redundant by the introduction of evolutionary methods that pursue a similar goal.
Based on the new feature set we develop a new contact predictor (4 hidden layer neural network).
Developed a new contact predictor called S\P-CP that combines evolutionary, physicochemical and sequence-based information. S\P-CP improves the mean precision on 1.5L for CASP11 hard FM targets by 16% over the current state-of-the-art MetaPSICOV. The new and refined feature set has drastically reduced dimensionality (by 75%).


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- Home
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- Waste Reduction
Waste Reduction
Pack a Waste-Free Lunch
A waste-free lunch means the only thing left to dispose of when you are finished eating besides fruit cores, peels
5 Ways to Pack a Waste-Free Lunch
Do Use
- Cloth Napkin to Wash and Reuse
- Reusable Carrier (Cloth Bag, Lunch Box)
- Reusable Containers
- Silverware to Wash and Reuse
- Thermos for Drinks
Do Not Use
- 1-Time Use Disposable Bags
- 1-Time Use Plastic Utensils
- Paper Napkins
- Plastic Wrap, Foil, or Styrofoam
- Single-Use Cartons or Cans
Lunch Waste Facts
- Aluminum Foil: 600,000 tons of aluminum foil is produced every year in the U.S. A large amount of electricity is used to manufacture foil.
- Aluminum and Tin Cans: More than half of the 100 billion cans sold in the U.S. last year were landfilled or incinerated.
- Banana and Orange Peels: As food decomposes in a landfill, it generates harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as methane (try composting or vermiculture).
- Disposable Beverage Containers and Utensils: Every year, Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks and spoons to circle the equator 300 times.
- Juice Boxes: Inorganic waste may take hundreds of years to decompose, or may not decompose at all.
- Paper Bags and Napkins: Approximately 17 trees are cut down for every ton of non-recycled paper produced.
- Styrofoam: Styrofoam is very difficult to recycle. The best way to protect the environment is to avoid using it.
Source: Global Stewards
Green Shopping
Did you know that your shopping choices affect the environment? Everything you buy affects the Earth, but some choices have a lesser impact. Educating yourself about the products you buy can empower you to make a difference in protecting the planet. It's called "green purchasing," and it's easy to do. Just follow some of the easy steps listed below:
- Buy Recycled: Items made from paper and plastic are often made from recycled materials. You can also buy automotive parts, motor oil, and tires made from recycled products. Also look out for household furnishings and gardening tools made from recycled materials.
- Buy in Bulk or Multi-Packs: Buying more items at once reduces packaging waste. You can also buy items with packaging that can be reused or recycled.
- Buy Used: You can find authentic retro clothes, accessories, and other items at your local thrift store.
- Buy Energy-Efficient Items: Look for the Energy Star logo when buying electronics such as TVs, CD players, DVD players, and computers. Energy Star is a voluntary labeling program designed to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce GHGs. Also, don't forget to check for gas-efficiency when purchasing a new vehicle.
- Combine Bags: When you're at the mall, don't get a new shopping bag for every item. Combine bags or put them in your backpack. Don't forget to hold onto the receipt!
- Trade With Friends: Instead of buying brand new products, swap with friends and family.


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Thanks, Sue D, for the reminder! Here's some pics from around the farm recently.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
August in July?
A photo of Donna's ditch, taken 3 days ago. It's blooming like it's august!
Donna's deck is about to be goosed....they're figuring out how to climb steps :)
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Spoiled rotten
How many geese in this world get to spend their days lounging in wool-mulched flowerbeds???
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HP makes memory from a once-theoretical circuit
Over three decades ago, a Berkeley professor theorized that there should be a circuit that can remember what's happened to it. Now, HP is demonstrating it actually exists.
It's the tale of the lost circuit.
Thirty-seven years ago, Leon Chua, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, mathematically theorized that scientific symmetry demands that there should be a fourth fundamental circuit element. Engineers were already familiar with resistors (which resist the flow of electricity), capacitors (which store electricity), and inductors (which resist changes to the flow of electrical current), which can be combined to build more complex devices. The fourth circuit, which Chua called a "memristor" for memory resistor, would register how much current had passed.
"He looked at fundamental circuit equations and noticed there was a hole," said Stan Williams, who heads up the Information and Quantum Systems lab at HP Labs, "There should be a device that remembers how much current flowed through a device."
Williams and other scientists at Hewlett-Packard are publishing a paper in Nature on Wednesday demonstrating that that these things actually exist. HP has a few discrete memristors as well as a silicon chip embedded with memristors. It's a first, according to HP.
If memristors can be commercialized, it could lead to very dense, energy-efficient memory chips. Scientists have made devices that function like memristors, but it took a good number of transistors and several capacitors, Williams said. Memristor chips would function like flash memory and retain data even after a computer is turned off, but require less silicon, consume less energy, and require fewer transistors.
A memristor effectively stores information because the level of its electrical resistance changes when current is applied. A typical resistor provides a stable level of resistance. By contrast, a memristor can have a high level of resistance, which can be interpreted as a computer as a "1" in data terms, and a low level can be interpreted as a "0." Thus, data can be recorded and rewritten by controlling current. In a sense, a memristor is a variable resistor that, through its resistance, reflects its own history, Williams said.
Varying resistance is the same principle at work with phase change memory. The difference in phase change memory, which will come to market later this year, is that changes in resistance are accomplished through a substantial amount of heating. A bit on a CD-like substrate is heated rapidly a few hundred degrees and then cooled. Depending on how rapidly the bit cools, the material becomes crystalline or amorphous. The different states--crystalline and amorphous--exhibit different states of resistance.
"We can get it (resistance changes) with less energy," Williams said. "It is a large amount of resistance change with a small amount of memory."
The secret sauce in HP's memristors is two layers of titanium oxide, a crystalline material consisting of one titanium atom and two oxygens, sandwiched between two metal wires. The bottom layer consists of standard, consistent titanium dioxide. The upper layer is missing a few oxygens--less than 1 percent--which creates voids. When a current is applied (via the wire) to the upper layer, the vacancies are pushed into the lower level of titanium dioxide. That changes the resistance of the lower level. Subsequent bursts of current can then reverse it.
"All we have to do is push around a very small number of vacancies in a crystalline material," Williams said. "We can switch it very fast, faster than we can measure."
Pushing the voids into the consistent layer of titanium dioxide does not change its characteristics otherwise. He likens it to bubbles in beer. "You can have bubbles in it, but it's still beer," he said.
Memory and storage are the new frontier for chip designers. The explosion of data will require new ways to retrieve and store it. Cloud computing? It's a big hard drive, if you think about it. Numonyx, the Intel and STMicroelectronics joint venture, is leading the effort to commercialize phase change memory. IBM is working on ways to store data through magnetic charges on a wire. Seagate Technology, Hitachi, Zettacore, Grandis, and others are working on different memory and storage concepts.
HP has largely exited the chip business, but it has increased efforts to license the intellectual property inside its labs. The company, for instance, will likely try to commercialize the crossbar latch technology, which allows molecular grids to perform calculations. (Williams also works on that.)
While memristors can be made on silicon chips, memristor devices will require engineers to learn a new circuit design discipline.
"The technology is in good shape. The big barrier is not whether you can make it," Williams said. "It is the effort to design new circuits."


text:
30 years after opening their first store in 1981 in
Barcelona, Camper now boasts 300 stores and 4,000 points of sale in over 50
The difference between Camper and other major brands though,
is that instead of designing a store identity that made all their shops
recognizably the same around the world, they hired different designers to make
each shop completely different and unique.
From opulent to minimalistic, stark tiles to flowery
upholstered walls, each Camper store becomes its own little jewel of design and
The following are a few of our favorites..
The New York Camper store in Soho designed by Shigeru Ban
and Dean Maltz is a diagonal design in a rectangular space, featuring one of the
best uses of Artek's 10-unit system we've seen and a saavy hidden way of showing the
A different approach is used in one of the London Camper
stores, designed by Tomas Alonso, where the shoes are laid directly into view,
and highlighted by the tile trompe-l'oeil in the background.
In addition to the tiles, the use of metal tubing throughout
the furniture and fixtures in the store give this design a certain quirkiness,
reminiscent of the 2D cube-based video games of our youth.
A completely different use of tiles is shown here in Alfredo
Haberli's Barcelona shop, where red mosaic takes over the bottom half of the
front of the store (a cross between a metro station and a Gaudi building?),
only to lead the weary customer to an elevator-like lounge where one can sit on
a 'Take-a-line-for-a-walk' armchair designed by the same Haberli for Moroso and
try on shoes at their leisure.
Another Barcelona store, this one designed by Spanish
designer Jaime Hayon, takes the same color red in a very different direction,
with furniture that looks like it most certainly would have been adopted by a
French monarch named Louis, had there been any in the 21st
Another opulent proposition is Tokujin Yoshioka's design for
a London Camper store, which utilizes the same folded fabric technique on a
large wall panel, as in the Bouquet chair he designed for Moroso, also present
in the space.
In contrast, Nendo's minimalist design for the Osaka store
focuses on nothing but the shoes themselves, by making the completely white
background (including wall, ceiling and floor) disappear and giving the shoes
the appearance of floating.


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The Institute for Power Generation and Storage Systems (PGS) is working on dispersed electrical power generation with a focus on renewable sources.
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Together with ISEA, PGS offers a wide spectrum of lectures for the bachelor and master programs at RWTH Aachen University. Furthermore, many interesting topics for bachelor and master theses are also available starting from simulation work to practical activities.
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Bryson City seeks citizen input in land-use plan
Want to build anything you want in a downtown location that receives a ton of visitors each summer? Then Bryson City, with its total lack of rules governing development, is just the place for you.
Better hurry, though, because town leaders want this wide open, anything-goes situation to end.
"We're going to fix Bryson City up the way people want it," said Alderman Kate Welch, who has served on the town board since 1995. "And, not just for today, but down the road."
To that end, the town aldermen appointed a planning advisory committee in November 2006 made up of planning board members and various citizens. The advisory committee has been tasked with preparing Bryson City's first land-use plan.
"This is something that is really important to all of us," said Planning Board Chairman Brad Walker. "With the tremendous growth that is taking place, we have realized we need land-use management."
As part of that process, town leaders held an informal session at Town Hall on Tuesday, May 29. Residents, business owners and others were asked what they wanted to see included in the plan.
Related Items
The list is long, at least based on the number of Post-It Notes containing suggestions that were tacked on the walls. But there were commonalities.
These included the need for more downtown parking ("need parking," "more parking downtown, enlarge parking spots"), objections to any suggestion of closing Frye Street to motorists ("do not close for pedestrians"), and a general agreement among those attending the meeting that they want Bryson City to keep its small-town feeling ("not Gatlinburg or Helen, Ga.," "No Helena, Montana or Tuscon, Arizona.").
Other comments included a wish for grants to pay for business façade improvements and better utilization of the Tuckasegee River, which cuts through the center of Bryson City.
"This is good. It gives us stuff to sift through and prioritize," said Wally Treadway, a planning board member, as he watched people writing down suggestions.
There's still time to do something, said Murphy Hunting, owner of Smoky Mountain Computers.
"I don't think it's overdue yet, but if they don't do something soon, the town we know and love will be gone," she said.
Carolyn Allison, incoming Swain County Chamber of Commerce president, agreed.
"It does seem people are coming in, and in my personal opinion, are pushing too fast into development," she said.
Kristy Carter, a state community development planner, said a draft land-use plan should be completed by fall for town board review.
The state, through the Division of Community Assistance, advises communities that lack the resources to go it alone on how to prepare land-use management plans.
Carter said the plan could contain appearance standards for buildings, environmental protections, and there is the possibility of creating a one-mile buffer zone around the 1,460-acre town, called an extra-territorial zone, or ETJ.
It will contain the following five components:
• Executive summary.
• Issues and vision statement.
• Information base (existing conditions and projections).
• Goals, objectives and policies relevant to each subject area.
• Intended course of action consisting of future land-use plan, development management program, plan implementation schedule and monitoring and adjustment program.
By the numbers
Population of Bryson City
2000 — 1,411
2005 — 1,462
Population of Swain County
2000 — 12,968
2005 — 13,585
Growth of Bryson City
1990-2000 — 23 percent
2000-2005 — 3.6 percent
1990-2005 — 27 percent
Housing units in Swain County
1990 — 5,664
2005 — 7,823
Housing units growth in Swain County
1990-2000 — 25 percent
2000-2005 — 10 percent
Source: N.C. Division of Community Assistance


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Suddenly, it's all coming together. Certainly, it took long enough: From the moment that Microsoft first announced its MSN online service back in the mid-1990's to the confusing LIVE strategy announcement of two years ago, it's never been clear that Microsoft "got" the Internet and how it could adapt its own products to work in this brave new world. These days, the company describes its online efforts as "software + services," the idea being that traditional desktop and server software--i.e. the increasingly irrelevant way that Microsoft made its billions in the first place--will be augmented, not replaced, by a new generation of Web-based services. Companies like Google, Yahoo!, and numerous tiny startups no-one's ever heard of, may disagree with this worldview, but then they don't have Microsoft's decades of experience and installed base bolstering their positions either.
This past week, Microsoft finally put its money where its mouth is, releasing what the company is cryptically describing as "Windows Live," despite the fact that the term Windows Live has already been used to describe a much wider range of products and services than what we'll be discussing in this review. I think of the products I'm reviewing here as the Windows Live suite, and I'll continue to use that term throughout this review in order to differentiate these products--which are downloaded and installed locally on Windows-based PCs--from the multitude of other Windows Live offerings. But regardless of the confusing terminology, one thing is very clear: Microsoft's software + plus services strategy is now a reality.
What's really stunning about all this is that it took a decade of antitrust battles in the US and Europe to push Microsoft over the edge and really embrace this strategy. One gets the feeling that many of the Windows Live products in the suite would have simply shipped as part of Windows had they been created a decade ago. But this time around, they're all optional and available for free on the Web. Even more impressive, perhaps, none of the Windows Live suite products are limited to just Windows Vista users: Microsoft has made them all available to the several hundred million people running its previous client OS, Windows XP, as well. This, too, is something that would have been inconceivable to the Microsoft of several years ago, and these products would all have been selling points for its latest OS version only. Say what you will about those overly-aggressive antitrust regulators, but they seem to have at least pushed Microsoft towards a strategy that makes sense for both the company and its customers.
So what are we talking about here, exactly? As I understand it, all of Microsoft's various online products and services are being marketed with the LIVE moniker. Under this LIVE umbrella are such things as the MSN online content services, the Xbox Live gaming service, the Zune Social media service, the Office Live productivity services, and, of course, Windows Live, which is the broadest and deepest offering of the bunch. Windows Live has historically consisted mostly of Web-based online services, such things as Hotmail (now called Windows Live Hotmail), and Spaces (a blog service), as well as Windows-based applications like Windows Live Messenger (instant messaging), and Windows Live Mail (a desktop email client). There are a stunning number of these products currently available in various stages of completion, and keeping track of all of them would require a finer mind than mine. Long story short: The Windows Live team has to be one of the busiest groups at Microsoft. It's fairly astonishing.
What I'm calling the Windows Live suite is Microsoft's first integrated set of downloadable Windows Live applications. It's available via a simple, single installer, and includes a number of Windows applications which, quite naturally, integrate with free Windows Live services back in the cloud. That's where the "software + services" name comes from. While it's possible to use many of these applications in isolation as normal, standalone Windows applications, each becomes more useful and valuable when used with various online services, including, surprisingly, many not made by Microsoft.
It's also worth noting that Microsoft has "released" (or at least taken out of beta) or updated a number of Windows Live services in concert with the release of this first Windows Live suite. I won't be reviewing these services here, specifically, but they include Windows Live Events (new), Windows Live for Windows Mobile (dramatically updated), Windows Live Hotmail (updated), and Windows Live Spaces (updated). In addition, other Windows Live products and services are waiting in the wings, including Windows Live OneCare 2, which was recently finalized, and the Windows Live SkyDrive online storage service, among many others.
Finally, I should note that this review is an updated version of my Windows Live Suite Preview, which was first published over two months ago. I've struggled in the past to come up with new ways to cover products I'd previously covered extensively during the beta period, but clearly there are only so many ways to describe a product. This review has been updated to reflect the final shipping Windows Live suite.
Installing Windows Live suite
With the Windows Live suite, Microsoft is making its integrated set of Windows applications available via a single installer from the Windows Live Web site. Previously, you could obtain beta and shipping versions of these and other Windows Live products and services individually. But Microsoft decided to bundle these solutions together in a way that would expose users to new services while still leaving them in charge of what they do and do not download and install on their system. If there's a downside to this approach, it's that you can't just download, say, the Windows Live Photo Gallery application as a standalone download. Some will find that inconvenient, but I think the majority of Windows Live customers will find this arrangement is simpler and more sensible than hunting around the Web for the applications they want.
"We've been talking about integrated experiences for a while now," Microsoft lead product manager Larry Grothaus told me during a briefing earlier this fall. "This is the fruition of that vision, and we're providing more value to customers who use Windows every day."
The Windows Live unified installer actually lives partially in the cloud: You instantiate it from a Web page, choose the products and services you want there, and only then is a Windows-based installer downloaded. That installer is largely hands-off, however, taking its cue from the choices you made in the Web-based part of the installer.
From the Windows Live Web, you can now learn about all of the Windows Live services that are currently available via the installer. It's quite a list too, and includes such things as Windows Live Mail (a desktop-based email client), Messenger (a desktop-based IM client), Toolbar (an Internet Explorer add-on), Spaces (a Web-based blogging service), Photo Gallery (a desktop-based photo and video management application), Writer (a desktop-based blog editor), OneCare Family Safety (a desktop-based family security solution), and Windows Live Mobile (for Windows Mobile-based smart phones), Hotmail (Web-based email), and Events (event planning and memory sharing).
When you click the Get Windows Live - FREE button, you're brought to the first page of the installer, titled Connect and Share Anywhere. Here, you will want to be careful. You can choose between the six desktop-based products mentioned above (Windows Live Mail, Messenger, Photo Gallery, Writer, Toolbar, and OneLive Family Safety), five of which are pre-selected. You can also choose to configure a few basic settings, including changing your browser search default (well, IE only) to Live.com, setting your browser (again, just IE) home page to MSN.com, and helping Microsoft by allowing it to collect anonymous information about your installation experience. All of these settings are selected by default, so read carefully.
Once you've made your choices, click the Install button and the client portion of the installer will download to your hard drive and execute. It will list the products you've chosen to install on the top, with those you have not on the bottom, providing you with a chance to change your mind. The installer will first check to determine if you already have any of the products you selected, and will then install only those that are new or available in newer versions. (Those who participated in the Windows Live beta will see that new versions of each client application are available.) The length of installation will depend on the number of applications you chose and, I've found, on the number of Windows Live applications you already have installed.
As the applications are downloaded and installed one by one, the Installer will highlight those that are ready and can be started, so you won't need to wait for the Installer to complete. That's a nice touch, but unlike with the Google Pack (see my review), the integrated installer doesn't provide any sort of servicing functionality. As these products are updated, you will have to rely on their own built-in updating mechanisms or, presumably, an eventual integration with Windows Update.
One the installer is completed, you can click the links of any application you'd like to start immediately or just click the Close button and then find the applications in your Start Menu as needed. As you might expect, Microsoft has created a new Windows Live Start Menu group that contains links to all of the installed applications. (And since the applications all start with the words "Windows Live," they're easy to find with the Start Menu Search feature in Windows Vista.)
The applications
Let's take a look at each of the Windows Live suite applications and services.
Windows Live Mail
Windows Live integration: Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts, and Messenger.
Non-Microsoft integration: Any POP3 and IMAP email services, RSS feeds, USENET
Customization: User interface color.
My rating:
Based as it is on Outlook Express and Windows Mail , Windows Live Mail (which at one point was to have been called Windows Live Mail Desktop) doesn't do much to overcome its somewhat unimpressive heritage: It looks a little bit too much like Outlook Express for my tastes, especially the nearly identical Options dialog. I'm told, however, that this is by design: Hundreds of millions of people still use Outlook Express, and Microsoft wanted an updated version of this application that was more secure and more functional. Consider the job done.
Windows Live Mail is a solid email client, with support for multiple email accounts--Hotmail, Live.com, and MSN, yes, but also any POP3 or IMAP accounts you may have. Those who do opt to use Windows Live Mail as a front-end for their Microsoft-oriented email accounts will see a number of integration benefits with such products as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Spaces. Additionally, Windows Live Mail includes some nice modern additions like instant search and RSS feed subscriptions. (There's also the increasingly irrelevant USENET newsgroup support that dates back to the earliest days of Microsoft's Internet Mail and News products.)
One thing that's missing is support for Windows Live Calendar, which is currently in beta. Contacts integration with Windows Live Contacts works as you'd expect, though I'm confused why you can't modify contacts' pictures in Windows Live Mail. (This appears to be a limitation of the Windows Live Contacts service, not WL Mail.)
If you're a fan of Outlook Express or Windows Mail and/or a heavy user of Microsoft's online services, Windows Live Mail is a compelling and obvious upgrade, especially for those who don't own the latest version of Outlook. Those who are a bit put off by these consumer email applications--and I place myself in this category--should try to look beyond Windows Live Mail's humble origins. This is an excellent email client with a modern feature set, and I find it less exotic and eclectic than other free email applications like Mozilla Thunderbird.
Windows Live Messenger 8.5
Windows Live integration: Windows Live Hotmail, Spaces, Search, and Xbox Live.
Non-Microsoft integration: Yahoo Messenger, eBay.
Customization: User interface color, application chrome can be enabled/disabled.
My rating:
I've been using Windows Live Messenger and its predecessors for so long now I can hardly remember when it all started. That said, my opinion on such things might not be particularly valuable: As an increasingly cranky and old guy, instant messaging (IM) to me is just another interruption when I'm trying to get work done.
Don't let my negativity get in the way, however. For what it is, Messenger 8.5 is a fine IM client, and of course its big attraction is that it integrates with other Windows Live services. The first version of Messenger to sport the Windows Live moniker was version 8, and that shipped in August 2006 (see my review). That version was a major release, with PC-to-PC calling, sharing folders, and the beginnings of the Windows Live integration stuff we now take for granted.
As its version number suggests, Messenger 8.5 isn't a major update, so it's full of mostly subtle changes. For example, this version adds a new look and feel with a dramatically refined interface across the board. Nothing dramatic.
Since you'll need a Windows Live ID (formerly Passport) account, you will gain access to your Hotmail-based email, Spaces-based blog, Windows Mobile-based portable device, and the like, all in obvious and discoverable ways, through Messenger. You can search the Web with Live.com, make phone calls, invite multiple people to chats, and perform high-quality video conferences. Messenger is increasingly becoming Microsoft's desktop-based, consumer-oriented communications hub (a role that Office Live Communicator plays for knowledge workers). And this, ultimately, is why I continue to use Messenger despite my general lack of regard for IM: When you need to get in touch with someone quickly, this is a simple and effective way to do so.
Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Live integration: Windows Live Messenger, Spaces, and MSN Soapbox.
Non-Microsoft integration: Flickr, Apple QuickTime format.
Customization: None.
My rating:
Windows Live Photo Gallery is the most intriguing application in the Windows Live suite, from my perspective. It's unusual, but not unique, in that it is one of the few Windows Live applications that is an upgrade for and replacement of an application that ships as part of Windows Vista. (The other is Windows Live Mail, which replaces Vista's Windows Mail.) Likewise, Windows Live Photo Gallery works in Windows XP too, which is neat as its predecessor was Vista-only.
So I'm relieved to see that we won't have to wait for a Photo Gallery update until the next major Windows release. But it's not just that: Windows Live Photo Gallery also expands on its predecessor in interesting and useful ways in two ways. First, there are traditional product enhancements, like the photo stitching feature, Adjust Detail/Sharpen photo fix functionality, and QuickTime movie support. Second, Windows Live Photo Gallery adds features that integrate, go figure, with the appropriate Windows Live services. More amazing, perhaps, Photo Gallery also works with third party services, too. So you can upload photos to your Windows Live Spaces blog or to Yahoo's Flickr service, and upload videos to MSN Soapbox. These actions are all performed via an obvious Publish button.
Unlike most other Windows Live suite applications, Windows Live Photo Gallery doesn't offer color scheme customization. It's also unable to easily resize photos. Those are curious omissions in an otherwise well-designed and extremely useful application. Indeed, Windows Live Photo Gallery is now my primary photo management solution. I can't think of higher praise.
Windows Live Writer
Windows Live integration: Windows Live Spaces.
Non-Microsoft integration: Every major blogging service on earth, Google PicasaWeb.
Customization: User interface color.
My rating:
There are basically two groups of bloggers out there today, hard-core and occasionally high profile niche bloggers--those who blog about blogging and other technologies, or perhaps politics--and normal people, those who blog about their cats, their vacations, and their families. These two groups don't have a lot in common beyond the fact that they can both publish content online via blogs, and one might think that Microsoft's blog editor, Windows Live Writer, would target the latter group rather than the former, given the audience Windows Live is trying to reach. That assumption is, of course, correct. But something rather interesting has happened since Microsoft shipped the first public beta version of Writer many moons ago: The blogoratti got its hands on the tool and decided they actually liked it too. And now this unassuming application has achieved a rare crossover success that touches on both sides of the fence.
The very existence of Windows Live Writer is somewhat astonishing given that Microsoft already makes Word, the best text processor on earth, and the latest version of that product, Word 2007, including pretty extensive blogging capabilities already. But here it is, and unlike Word, Windows Live Writer is free. And you know what? It's actually pretty sweet. The UI is attractive and the feature set is amazingly complete. It supports a wide range of blogging services, though of course it works best with Microsoft's Spaces and SharePoint services.
Or does it? I use Blogger software for my own blog, and have since 2001, well before Google bought the service. Blogger is as quirky and non-standard as blog services get, and yet Writer handles it with ease, after you look up a few technical details about your account first. The same is true of a surprising number of blogging services, including TypePad, LiveJournal, Movable Type, WordPress, Community Server (used on the SuperSite Blog), dasBlog, and Radio Userland. Not too shabby for a free product from Microsoft that, by all rights, you might expect to completely ignore the outside world.
And when I say support, mean support: With my Blogger-based blog, I can use Writer to create and edit posts using the actual fonts and styles found on the live site, so what I see is really what I get. It works with Blogger's categories, which is wonderful, and pretty much does it all. Writer has inline spell checking, hyperlink, image, photo, and even video insertion capabilities, and awesome text editing features. You can even upload images to Google's Picasaweb service, which I also happen to use. I'm hugely impressed by this application. Writer is an amazing little niche application that a lot of people are going to find quite advantageous. It's that good.
Windows Live Toolbar
Windows Live integration: Windows Live Hotmail, Spaces, many others, many MSN services.
Non-Microsoft integration: None, though toolbar is highly customizable.
Customization: Can choose from a wide range of toolbar buttons.
My rating:
Maybe this is just an aesthetic thing, but I prefer my Web browser to be as clean and streamlined as possible, and for this reason I'm no fan of the multitude of browser toolbars that are available online. Microsoft's Windows Live toolbar, which works only in Internet Explorer (IE), is typical of the toolbars created by major Web services companies (such as Google and Yahoo). And thanks to IE 7's horrible user interface, it doesn't integrate well into Microsoft's latest browser at all.
These toolbars are aimed at heavy users of a particular Web services company, so if you have bought into Microsoft's online vision--which is absolutely OK, by the way--the Windows Live toolbar might be useful to you. I happen to use Firefox and utilize a number of Google online services--Gmail, Google Calendar, PicasaWeb, and so on--and I actually do use the Google Toolbar for Firefox, but not in a way that's even possible on IE: In Firefox, you can actually meld the Google Toolbar with the main (Navigation) Firefox toolbar, and that allows me to use just a single toolbar, creating that streamlined and clean look I was just mentioning. In IE, toolbars always load below the main toolbar, in their own space, and thus they clutter the interface. (And again, on IE 7, this effect is even worse.)
OK, enough IE 7 bashing. So what does the Windows Live toolbar buy you, exactly? Frankly, many of the reasons for using such a toolbar a few years ago no longer apply, as you can get such things as pop-up blocking directly inside any modern browser. What you get now are the aforementioned services integration points and, hopefully, a few features that you might find useful. The latest version of the Windows Live toolbar is somewhat predictable: There's a circular Windows Live button, with drop-down menu for quick access to such things as Live.com and Hotmail, a sizable Live.com search box (somewhat duplicating the similar search box in IE 7), links to Microsoft and partner services such as MSNBC, Windows Live Gallery, and MSN, a Blog It button so you can blog about the currently displayed page in Windows Live Writer, and some settings and help links.
The real appeal to the toolbar, frankly, isn't what gets installed by default, but rather what you can add to it: Microsoft and its partners offer a wide variety of toolbar buttons that extend the toolbar, and thus the browser itself, in very interesting ways. One excellent example is the Windows Live Favorites button, which allows you to save your Favorites up in the cloud, rather than maintain different Favorites collections on each PC. (I use Google's version of this in Firefox.)
Anyway, the gist here is that the toolbar will appeal most to those who have invested heavily in Microsoft's online services. Certainly, this is a huge group of people. But I think you should weigh the conveniences of the toolbar against the inelegant nature with which such toolbars are forced to integrate with IE 7. In other words, I don't recommend installing this toolbar.
Final thoughts
Overall, the Windows Live suite is an excellent set of add-ons for Windows XP and Vista, and all users of these systems should evaluate these products and download those they think are interesting. That they're free is excellent, of course, but then so are the products' integration capabilities across various Windows Live products and services, and even third party online services. I expect the Windows Live suite to improve its compatibility with non-Microsoft services over time, but even this first effort is laudable. If you're unconvinced that Microsoft gets the Web services world, check out the Windows Live suite. You might just become a convert. Highly recommended.


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DuPont's Crop Protection Business; Simultaneous Sale of Health and Nutrition to DuPont
- FMC will acquire the portion of DuPont's Crop Protection business required to be divested by a European Commission ruling related to DuPont's merger with The Dow Chemical Company.
- DuPont will acquire FMC Health and Nutrition.
- FMC will make a cash payment to DuPont of $1.2 billion.
- These transactions will be immediately accretive to FMC's adjusted earnings per share, upon closing.(1)
[편집자 주] 본고는 자료 제공사에서 제공한 것으로, 연합뉴스는 내용에 대해 어떠한 편집도 하지 않았음을 밝혀 드립니다.
(PHILADELPHIA, March 31, 2017 PRNewswire=연합뉴스) FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) and DuPont (NYSE: DD) today announced the signing of a definitive agreement for FMC to acquire the portion of DuPont's Crop Protection business it must divest to comply with the European Commission ruling related to its merger with The Dow Chemical Company. Additionally, DuPont will acquire FMC Health and Nutrition and receive $1.2 billion in cash. FMC will acquire DuPont's global chewing pest insecticide portfolio, its global cereal broadleaf herbicides, and a substantial portion of DuPont's global crop protection R&D capabilities. In 2017, FMC expects this acquired business will generate approximately $1.5 billion in revenue and $475 million of EBITDA.2
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111101/NE97440LOGO
After closing of the acquisition, FMC Agricultural Solutions will become the fifth largest crop protection chemical company in the world by revenue, with estimated annual revenue of approximately $3.8 billion.
"This is a significant step forward for FMC, and for our Agricultural Solutions business in particular," said Pierre Brondeau, FMC president, CEO and chairman. "The combination of market-leading products from DuPont's crop protection portfolio and its world-class R&D capabilities will transform our Agricultural Solutions business into a tier-one ag technology company.
"The crop protection industry is undergoing significant change, as evidenced by the consolidation currently underway. To continue to meet the demands of our customers, FMC needs to provide more options to growers looking for innovative solutions that protect crops and increase yields. By combining these high-value products and R&D capabilities with our own product portfolio, pipeline and formulation expertise, FMC will be able to serve our customers better and accelerate the pace at which we bring new solutions to the market," said Brondeau. "The concurrent sale of our Health and Nutrition business will allow us to maintain our strong balance sheet and ensure we can continue to invest in growing both our Agricultural Solutions and Lithium segments."
The Crop Protection Business Being Acquired
The acquired portion of DuPont's crop protection business includes an industry-leading selective insecticide portfolio consisting of Rynaxypyr(R), Cyazypyr(R) and Indoxacarb. The first two of these products have full patent protection over their respective active ingredients, and FMC expects these products will generate over $1 billion in 2017 revenue. These selective insecticides are highly complementary to FMC's existing broad spectrum insecticide portfolio.
The acquired portfolio also includes DuPont's global cereal broadleaf herbicides, consisting of nine active ingredients and multiple formulated products. This herbicide portfolio comes with strong, recognized brands and DuPont's proprietary PrecisionPac(R) technology. These products bring significant diversification to FMC's crop exposure in herbicides, as well as increasing the balance of pre-emergent and post-emergent applications in FMC's portfolio.
The geographic spread of the revenue in this portfolio will result in a significant increase in FMC's presence in Asia and Europe. Following the acquisition, FMC's crop protection revenue will be almost equally spread across all four major regions - North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
The underlying intellectual property related to the acquired products, including patents, registrations and data packages, will be transferred to FMC. FMC will acquire a global manufacturing network to fully support these products, including four active ingredient manufacturing facilities and 10 regional formulation plants.
The acquisition will bring DuPont's world-class discovery and development organization, including its Delaware crop protection research headquarters, 14 regional development labs and related regulatory capabilities. This organization includes a pipeline of 15 synthetic active ingredients currently in development, covering insecticides, herbicides and fungicides, and an extensive library of 1.8 million synthetic compounds. The majority of DuPont's crop protection research workforce will transfer to FMC as part of this transaction.
FMC Health and Nutrition Divestiture
FMC Health and Nutrition will become part of DuPont's Nutrition & Health segment.
"FMC Health and Nutrition is a highly profitable business with leading positions across the vast majority of its portfolio, deep applications knowledge and an extensive global network of laboratories and manufacturing facilities. It is a very complementary fit with DuPont's current portfolio. We are confident it will thrive under DuPont's leadership and will contribute to their successful Nutrition & Health business," said Brondeau.
Additional Information
The transaction is subject to the closing of the Dow and DuPont merger, as well as customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Closing is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2017. FMC expects this transaction to be immediately accretive to adjusted earnings per share, and will give updated guidance for 2017 at its earnings call scheduled for May 2, 2017.
Dyal Co. LLC and Citi acted as financial advisors and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal counsel to FMC. Citi provided financing advice and committed debt facilities.
Conference Call
The company will host a webcast conference call on Friday, March 31, 2017, at 8:00 a.m. ET that is open to the public via internet broadcast and telephone.
Internet broadcast: http://www.fmc.com
Passcode: FMC
Dial-in telephone numbers:
U.S. / Canada: (800) 230-1059
International: (612) 332-0226
Conference ID # 421549
A replay of the call will be available via the internet and telephone from 10:00 a.m. ET on Friday, March 31, 2017 until Sunday, April 30, 2017.
Internet replay: http://www.fmc.com
U.S. / Canada: (800) 475-6701
International: (320) 365-3844
Conference ID # 421549
About FMC
For more than a century, FMC Corporation has served the global agricultural, industrial and consumer markets with innovative solutions, applications and quality products. Revenue totaled approximately $3.3 billion in 2016. FMC employs approximately 6,000 people throughout the world and operates its businesses in three segments: FMC Agricultural Solutions, FMC Health and Nutrition and FMC Lithium. For more information, visit www.FMC.com.
About DuPont
DuPont (NYSE: DD) has been bringing world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace in the form of innovative products, materials, and services since 1802. The company believes that by collaborating with customers, governments, NGOs, and thought leaders we can help find solutions to such global challenges as providing enough healthy food for people everywhere, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels, and protecting life and the environment. For additional information about DuPont and its commitment to inclusive innovation, please visit www.dupont.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Act of 1995: Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning specific factors described in FMC Corporation's 2016 Form 10-K and other SEC filings. Such information contained herein represents management's best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. FMC Corporation does not intend to update this information and disclaims any legal obligation to the contrary. Historical information is not necessarily indicative of future performance.
This press release contains certain "non-GAAP financial terms" which are defined on our website www.fmc.com. In addition, we have also provided on our website at www.fmc.com reconciliations of non-GAAP terms to the most directly comparable GAAP term.
1. Although FMC provides forecasts for adjusted earnings per share and adjusted cash from operations (both of which are non-GAAP financial measures), FMC is not able to forecast the most directly comparable measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. Certain elements of the composition of the GAAP amounts are not predictable, making it impractical for us to forecast. Such elements include, but are not limited to restructuring, acquisition charges, and discontinued operations and related cash activity. As a result, no GAAP outlook is provided.
2. Represents FMC's estimate of the 2017 EBITDA of the acquired business, if it were a standalone business. EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial term and represents earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
Source: FMC Corporation
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Possibility to get an exclusive Premium tier! If you have not accumulated enough miles to get a Premium Card, you can take an advantage of UIA special "New Year" offer – purchase "status" miles.
So, purchase the missing miles at the rate of 1000 miles per 50 USD and extend the range of your Panorama Club benefits!
More benefits with Premium Card:
- Business class desk check in;
- Business class lounge;
- Extra checked baggage allowance;
- Extra bonus miles and many other benefits.
The offer is valid until January 31, 2011.
Panorama Club wishes you to welcome the New Year in Premium style!


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SEO Tips To Get Better Ranking Than Your Competitors On SERP
The marketing game is all about being found by your prospective consumers when they look for a provider for a particular product or service. And you have to ensure that you are the ones that they see first. Essentially, you have to come out at the top in the search engine results. To achieve this, your provider for affordable SEO services has to devise an SEO strategy that will outshine that of your competition. The following SEO tips should be able to help you get there: ⦁ Identify Keywords You need to identify keywords or phrases, which should be present on your website and its content. These phrases should match with the ones that the consumers are likely to use when they search for a supplier on Google or other search engines. These have to be relevant to your site in order to get the most relevant consumers to visit you. Else, it could lead to a lot of non-useful traffic. Your content should focus on one keyword and those used for different pages should be varied according to


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$ 58.50
A fresh take on a favorite motif, this dainty design features delicate coloring, detailed patterns and cutwork, and a subtly hand-hammered finish. Our Sugar Maple Earrings are perfect for nature lovers and to wear as a symbol of strength, beauty and inner sweetness. Swarovski crystal or pearl with niobium or old or silver overlay.
Dimensions: 0.625"w x 1.5"h
Holly Hosterman & Paul "Yashi" Lubitz
Arcata, California
Since 1981, Holly Yashi has been making quality, handcrafted artisan jewelry in their Redwood Coast design studio in Arcata, California. Their signature style of colorful and lightweight niobium metal is still what makes Holly Yashi jewelry unique and irresistible. With Swarovski crystals and pearls, Bohemian and dichroic glass, and hypo-allergenic metals, all Holly Yashi jewelry is crafted by hand in small, high quality batches, one piece at a time.
$ 73.50
Pulsing with energetic color and the most exquisite detail, our design team dared to stretch...
$ 57.50
Pulsing with energetic color and the most exquisite detail, Holly Yashi's design team dared to...
$ 60.50
The Bella Butterfly Pendant Necklace is artfully crafted with some of our most elaborate detailing:...
$ 61.50
Sheets of precious metal make a remarkable metamorphosis into these Enchanted Butterfly Earrings. Detailed waterjet techniques...


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The Student Intern Coordinator and the Mentor will be responsible for completing all evaluations on your performance as required by your school.
Show All Answers
On the first day of your placement, report on time and to the location directed by the Student Intern Coordinator. The Student Intern Coordinator will establish an ongoing schedule introducing you to a variety of the day-to-day activities of the Probation Officer.
The Student Intern Coordinator is responsible for providing an overview of the Department and its process. He/she will be available to answer questions regarding your internship with the Department and will be responsible for the overall coordination of the placement experience.
The normal workday is from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, although variations of these hours are frequently necessary to accommodate the needs of a particular case or caseload. At times, the officer to whom you are assigned may work other than normal work hours. These changes may be unexpected, particularly in an emergency or crisis. The student must be flexible for it may not be feasible to transport the student back to the office or meeting location at the planned time.
Projecting a professional image is essential. While in the office, males are expected to wear a coat and tie, while females should be neatly attired in a skirt and blouse, dress, or slacks. Extremes should be avoided. In the field, casual attire is permitted but should be neat, clean, and in good repair. Shorts are not appropriate for office or field.
The student should immediately contact the Probation/Parole Officer Mentor to cancel any arrangements for that particular day. If unable to contact the Officer, the student should contact the office. Failure to do this can result in a great deal of wasted time for an officer who is waiting for a student to appear before proceeding with scheduled activities.
All students accepted for placement should have transportation available because it may be necessary for the student to meet the officer at predetermined locations away from the office. The Student Intern Coordinator should be consulted regarding specific expectations in this regard.
The Department welcomes the objective examination of its efforts and is continually trying to find ways to improve its operations. The student is asked to follow Departmental policy and procedure in doing projects. The Student Intern Coordinator should be consulted before the initiation of any research or study.
The Department normally may assign a research project to a student during the internship. Such projects will be governed by the needs of the Department and capabilities of the student. All projects will be approved by the Deputy Chief Adult Probation and Parole Officer.
While case files and other client-related records are available for review by the student, they are to be used only for educational purposes. The Department is bound by strict rules of confidentiality and no information, written or verbal, may leave the Department without the specific approval of the Mentor or Coordinator. Additionally, the student should not discuss specific cases and identifying data with anyone outside the Department, for such discussion could be damaging to the client.
If problems are encountered in a particular placement, which cannot be resolved with the Student Intern Coordinator, these matters should be brought to the attention of the Chief or Deputy Chief Probation Officer. There will be an attempt to resolve the problem and/or bring the matter to the attention of the involved parties and make appropriate program modifications so future problems can be averted.


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Young Artists and Writers Project
Follow us on TWITTER, FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM(@YAWPyoungwriters) | Watch our videos on YOUTUBE
Read the latest issue of our YAWP Ezine!
Get information on our Summer Workshops for student writers
The Young Artists and Writers Project (formerly the Young American Writers Project) is dedicated to mentoring middle and high school students in the development of creative expression and critical thinking through the writing arts.
Sponsored by Stony Brook Southampton's MFA's in Creative Writing and Film, YAWP programs pair professional writers and writing teachers with high school and middle school students in a variety of innovative, inter-disciplinary writing workshops in area schools, as well as on Stony Brook's Southampton and Manhattan campuses, including:
Personal Essay
… all of which conclude with special projects and presentations, as well as potential vodcasts, blogs and/or publication in the YAWP Ezine.
The goals of YAWP include:
• To enhance critical thinking, collaboration and communications skills.
• To help each student find and develop his or her unique voice and point of view.
• To use creative expression as a way to solve problems and promote global awareness.
• To advance 21st century skills while supporting ELA requirements.
• To provide community outreach for Southampton Graduate Arts.
• To develop and support the next generation of writers, readers and artists.
YAWP school-based workshops are offered throughout the school year, and can be custom designed to fit the needs of an individual school. They can "push-in" to Creative Writing, English, Theatre or other academic classes, or they can be an extra-curricular or retreat program. School break workshops are offered on the Stony Brook Southampton and Manhattan campuses in the summer as well as during winter and spring breaks, and the YAWP Scriptwriting Retreat is a life-changing week-long writing residency for high school students on the Southampton Campus. YAWP programs can be particularly effective for at-risk students, or for those who find writing and communications skills challenging in the traditional academic environment.
Please contact us to discuss how the YAWP programs can best serve your individual school, student group or young writer!
Emma Walton Hamilton
Executive Director
Will Chandler
Program Director


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The DUNE Duffle medium is made from upcycled bedouin stretch tent. It offers a large pack space with a wide, open entry for easy access. This is a highly practical and usable bag! An internal long slim zip pocket allows for organized packing and there is a large end pocket for dirty/damp items. It is internally lined with a water resistant nylon (formerly marketing materials), and has two external easy access side pockets, and a secure outer zip pocket. The bottom of the bag has a durable rip-stop base, giving this bag an extra long lifespan.
The DUNE Duffel is hand made in the Sealand workshop situated in Cape Town, South Africa, and has a lifetime warrantee.
Each and every Sealand product incorporates upcycled materials, creating a unique finish.
Dimensions: L 650mm x D 340mm x H 250mm
Weight: 1kg
Literage: 55.3 litres
Origin: Cape Town, South Africa


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The [Dallas Personal Robotics Group] recently put together a set of tutorials for their members, including the build process of a table-top robot, they call the Tiny Wanderer. The bot can be constructed pretty easily, and is meant as an introduction to robot building.
The small servo-driven bot uses simple edge sensors to ensure that it doesn't fall off a raised surface. The sensors were built using a small IR LED and photo transistor, which is partially isolated from the LED by a piece of shrink tubing. An ATiny micro-controller takes two measurements of the amount of IR light entering the photo transistor – one with the LED on, the other with the LED off. The difference of these measurements is compared to determine if the edge sensors are hanging off the side of the table. The logic used here is pretty simple – the difference will be high if the sensors are hovering over a surface, due to reflected light, and low if the sensors are hanging over open space.
The writeup contains templates for building the bot's structure, as well as source code and schematics for all of the electronic bits.
Be sure to stick around to see a video of the robot in action.


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- Home
- Governance
The Town is overseen by an elected 5-member Select Board, and is administered by an appointed professional Town Manager, who also oversees approximately 20 departments and divisions. Andover's public schools are overseen by an elected 5-member School Committee, and administered by an appointed professional Superintendent.
There are also various appointed boards and committees which have specific responsibilities concerning various aspects of town governance. Town Meeting, which is generally unique to New England, serves as Andover's legislative body. It offers all registered voters of the community the opportunity to participate in the major decisions of the Town. Town Meeting is facilitated by an elected Town Moderator, who also responsible for appointing a nine-member Finance Committee, which in turn is responsible for advising Town Meeting on all matters brought before it.
Agendas & Minutes
Access easily searchable meeting agendas and minutes for various boards, commissions, and committees.
Link to page -
Select Board
The Select Board serves as the Town's policy-making body, except as otherwise directed by state statutes or by the Town Charter. The Selectmen are elected by the voters of Andover, and serve for 3-year staggered terms.
Link to page -
Budget Information
Read documents and browse current and previously approved budgets.
Link to page -
Code of Bylaws
Search, view, and print Town general and zoning bylaws online.
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Financial Reports
Review the collection of comprehensive annual financial reports, contributory retirement system valuations and more.
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Public Records Center
Responding to public records requests is an important service we provide the public. In most cases a request for public records will require payment in advance.
Link to page -
Town Meeting
If you need further information, you can contact the Town Clerk or Town Manager. An ombudsman is present at all Town Meetings to assist voters in wording amendments and answer questions on procedures.
Link to page -
Town Reports
Review the Annual Report, prepared by the Town Manager pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 40, Section 49 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Article Ii, Section 4 of the General by-Laws of the Town of Andover.
Link to page -
Boards & Commissions A - E
Find boards and commissions that begin with letters A through E.
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Boards & Commissions F - Z
Find boards and commissions that begin with letters F - Z.
Link to page


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Welcome to Rejuvenation Science®!
By Rosalie Marion Bliss, USDA Agricultural Research Service
February 27, 2006
Dietary professionals and others interested in checking the amount of "added" sugars in foods can now tap a new data resource. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) nutritionists today launched an online table that lets users look up the added sugars, total sugars and carbohydrates in 2,041 common foods listed.
The "special interest table" was produced by researchers in the Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL), one of six units that make up the ARS Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center (BHNRC). The NDL is headed by nutritionist Joanne Holden. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
U.S. consumers eat about 74 pounds of added sugars per year, according to 1999-2002 survey data analyzed by researchers at the BHNRC's Community Nutrition Research Group. That's about 23 teaspoons of added sugars every day--or 460 calories that supply no additional nutrients.
In the new table, added sugars are defined as those sugars added to foods and beverages during processing or home preparation. The data reported are estimated values based on the added sweeteners listed under "ingredients" on the package labels of processed foods and beverages. Some added sugars listed under ingredients include honey, molasses, fruit juice concentrate, brown sugar, corn sweetener, sucrose, lactose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup and malt syrup.
The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans underscore the importance of consumers' limiting the amount of added sugars in the foods they eat. While foods containing natural sugars, such as fresh fruit and milk, are rich in vitamins and minerals, many foods and beverages that contain high amounts of added sugars may be relatively low in nutrients. This special interest table will help users identify foods that contain high levels of added sugars.
The new table is entitled "USDA Database for the Added Sugars Content of Selected Foods." Entries are listed alphabetically within 23 food groups such as "Baked Products," "Fast Foods" and "Snacks." To download the new special interest table as a PDF or Excel file, go to: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=12107
Rosalie Marion Bliss, USDA Agricultural Research Service. February 27, 2006


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If you're buying a high-end virtual reality headset in 2016, you're probably not too concerned about money.
After all, the Oculus Rift system alone will cost $599, and HTC just announced an $799 price tag for its Vive VR system. Those prices don't even factor in the souped-up gaming PC you'll need for either set, so either way the cost will exceed $1,500 to enjoy state-of-the-art VR at home.
But let's say you are prioritizing price, rather than the vastly different experiences that the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive will offer. Here's a rundown of how these two VR headsets compare on value, beyond just the sticker cost:
HTC Vive: What's included for $799
HTC's big pitch is that the Vive—which ships in April—includes everything you need for a complete virtual reality experience (well, minus the PC, but we'll get to that). To wit:
- One head-mounted display with front-facing cameras
- Two wireless base stations
- Two position-tracking controllers
- Bundled game: Job Simulator (limited-time offer)
- Bundled game: Fantastic Contraption (limited-time offer)
As Jason Cross noted on PCWorld, HTC's approach resembles what Microsoft originally tried to do with the Xbox One. By bundling Kinect cameras—and making consumers eat the cost—Microsoft hoped lots of games would include motion-tracking and voice controls by default. Likewise, HTC and Valve are aiming for a big catalog of games that follow your hands and body around the room, so you can't opt out of the Pre's position-tracking controllers.
Oculus Rift: What's included for $599
By comparison, Oculus is taking the minimalist approach with its Rift headset, which starts shipping in late March and comes in at a lower price than the Pre. Here's what's in the box:
- One Oculus Rift headset
- Desktop IR LED-tracking sensor
- Xbox One controller ($50 value)
- Oculus Remote controller
- Bundled game: Eve: Valkyrie (with pre-orders)
- Bundled game: Lucky's Tale
For hand-tracking, Oculus plans to sell its Oculus Touch controllers in the second half of this year, but the company hasn't announced pricing. Alternatively, you'll be able to stick a Leap Motion controller to the headset for about $90, though it's unclear how much app and game support this third-party accessory will get in the long term.
What about PC requirements?
The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have similar spec requirements if you're building your own PC. Both require an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card, and an Intel i5-4590 CPU (though HTC also supports AMD FX 8350 or greater CPUs). Oculus requires double the RAM at 8GB, and also demands four USB ports, including three with USB 3.0, compared to just one USB 2.0 for the HTC Vive. But either way, expect to spend $900 or more to build a VR-ready PC.
Alternatively, you can buy a ready-made PC with a stamp of approval from either VR vendor. Here, Oculus comes out ahead, with bundles starting at $949 with the purchase of a Rift. HTC hasn't announced any bundles yet, and the cheapest "Vive Optimized" PCs start at $1,600.
All told, the Oculus Rift seems like a slightly better value, but with diminishing returns as you spend more for the full VR experience. Early adopters may be wise to bet on the system they believe in most, regardless of cost.